Chapter 14

LIMOUSIN(orLimosin),LÉONARD(c.1505-c.1577), French painter, the most famous of a family of seven Limoges enamel painters, was the son of a Limoges innkeeper. He is supposed to have studied under Nardon Pénicaud. He was certainly at the beginning of his career influenced by the German school—indeed, his earliest authenticated work, signed L. L. and dated 1532, is a series of eighteen plaques of the “Passion of the Lord,” after Albrecht Dürer, but this influence was counter-balanced by that of the Italian masters of the school of Fontainebleau, Primaticcio, Rosso, Giulio Romano and Solario, from whom he acquired his taste for arabesque ornament and for mythological subjects. Nevertheless the French tradition was sufficiently ingrained in him to save him from becoming an imitator and from losing his personal style. In 1530 he entered the service of Francis I. as painter andvarlet de chambre, a position which he retained under Henry II. For both these monarchs he executed many portraits in enamel—among them quite a number of plaques depicting Diane de Poitiers in various characters,—plates, vases, ewers, and cups, besides decorative works for the royal palaces, for, though he is best known as an enameller distinguished for rich colour, and for graceful designs in grisaille on black or bright blue backgrounds, he also enjoyed a great reputation as an oil-painter. His last signed works bear the date 1574, but the date of his death is uncertain, though it could not have been later than the beginning of 1577. It is on record that he executed close upon two thousand enamels. He is best represented at the Louvre, which owns his two famous votive tablets for the Sainte Chapelle, each consisting of twenty-three plaques, signed L. L. and dated 1553; “La Chasse,” depicting Henry II. on a white horse, Diane de Poitiers behind him on horseback; and many portraits, including the kings by whom he was employed, Marguerite de Valois, the duc de Guise, and the cardinal de Lorraine. Other representative examples areat the Cluny and Limoges museums. In England some magnificent examples of his work are to be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, and the Wallace Collection. In the collection of Signor Rocchi, in Rome, is an exceptionally interesting plaque representing Frances I. consulting a fortune-teller.

SeeLéonard Limousin: peintre de portraits(L’Œuvre des peintres émailleurs), by L. Boudery and E. Lachenaud (Paris, 1897)—a careful study, with an elaborate catalogue of the known existing examples of the artist’s work. The book deals almost exclusively with the portraits illustrated. See also Alleaume and Duplessis,Les Douze Apôtres—émaux de Léonard Limousin, &c. (Paris, 1865); L. Boudery,Exposition retrospective de Limoges en 1886(Limoges, 1886); L. Boudery,Léonard Limousin et son œuvre(Limoges, 1895);Limoges et le Limousin(Limoges, 1865); A. Meyer,L’Art de l’émail de Limoges, ancien et moderne(Paris, 1896); Émile Molinier,L’Émaillerie(Paris, 1891).

LIMOUSIN(Lat.Pagus Lemovicinus, ager Lemovicensis, regio Lemovicum, Lemozinum, Limosinium, &c.), a former province of France. In the time of Julius Caesar thepagus Lemovicinuscovered the county now comprised in the departments of Haute-Vienne, Corrèze and Creuse, with thearrondissementsof Confolens in Charente and Nontron in Dordogne. These limits it retained until the 10th century, and they survived in those of the diocese of Limoges (except a small part cut off in 1317 to form that of Tulle) until 1790. The break-up into great fiefs in the 10th century, however, tended rapidly to disintegrate the province, until at the close of the 12th century Limousin embraced only the viscounties of Limoges, Turenne and Comborn, with a few ecclesiastical lordships, corresponding roughly to the presentarrondissementsof Limoges and Saint Yrien in Haute-Vienne and part of thearrondissementsof Brive, Tulle and Ussel in Corrèze. In the 17th century Limousin, thus constituted, had become no more than a smallgouvernement.

Limousin takes its name from theLemovices, a Gallic tribe whose county was included by Augustus in the province ofAquitaniaMagna. Politically its history has little of separate interest; it shared in general the vicissitudes of Aquitaine, whose dukes from 918 onwards were its over-lords at least till 1264, after which it was sometimes under them, sometimes under the counts of Poitiers, until the French kings succeeded in asserting their direct over-lordship. It was, however, until the 14th century, the centre of a civilization of which the enamelling industry (seeEnamel) was only one expression. The Limousin dialect, now a merepatois, was regarded by the troubadours as the purest form of Provençal.

See A. Lerœux,Géographie et histoire du Limousin(Limoges, 1892). Detailed bibliography in Chevalier,Répertoire des sources. Topo-bibliogr.(Montbéliard, 1902), t. ii.s.v.

LIMPOPO,orCrocodile, a river of S.E. Africa over 1000 m. in length, next to the Zambezi the largest river of Africa entering the Indian Ocean. Its head streams rise on the northern slopes of the Witwatersrand less than 300 m. due W. of the sea, but the river makes a great semicircular sweep across the high plateau first N.W., then N.E. and finally S.E. It is joined early in its course by the Marico and Notwani, streams which rise along the westward continuation of the Witwatersrand, the ridge forming the water-parting between the Vaal and the Limpopo basins. For a great part of its course the Limpopo forms the north-west and north frontiers of the Transvaal. Its banks are well wooded and present many picturesque views. In descending the escarpment of the plateau the river passes through rocky ravines, piercing the Zoutpansberg near the north-east corner of the Transvaal at the Toli Azimé Falls. In the low country it receives its chief affluent, the Olifants river (450 m. long), which, rising in the high veld of the Transvaal east of the sources of the Limpopo, takes a more direct N.E. course than the main stream. The Limpopo enters the ocean in 25° 15′ S. The mouth, about 1000 ft. wide, is obstructed by sandbanks. In the rainy season the Limpopo loses a good deal of its water in the swampy region along its lower course. High-water level is 24 ft. above low-water level, when the depth in the shallowest part does not exceed 3 ft. The river is navigable all the year round by shallow-draught vessels from its mouth for about 100 m., to a spot known as Gungunyana’s Ford. In flood time there is water communication south with the river Komati (q.v.). At this season stretches of the Limpopo above Gungunyana’s Ford are navigable. The river valley is generally unhealthy.

The basin of the Limpopo includes the northern part of the Transvaal, the eastern portion of Bechuanaland, southern Matabeleland and a large area of Portuguese territory north of Delagoa Bay. Its chief tributary, the Olifants, has been mentioned. Of its many other affluents, the Macloutsie, the Shashi and the Tuli are the most distant north-west feeders. In this direction the Matoppos and other hills of Matabeleland separate the Limpopo basin from the valley of the Zambezi. A little above the Tuli confluence is Rhodes’s Drift, the usual crossing-place from the northern Transvaal into Matabeleland. Among the streams which, flowing north through the Transvaal, join the Limpopo is the Nylstroom, so named by Boers trekking from the south in the belief that they had reached the river Nile. In the coast region the river has one considerable affluent from the north, the Chengane, which is navigable for some distance.The Limpopo is a river of many names. In its upper course called the Crocodile that name is also applied to the whole river, which figures on old Portuguese maps as the Oori (or Oira) and Bembe. Though claiming the territory through which it ran the Portuguese made no attempt to trace the river. This was first done by Captain J. F. Elton, who in 1870 travelling from the Tati goldfields sought to open a road to the sea via the Limpopo. He voyaged down the river from the Shashi confluence to the Toli Azimé Falls, which he discovered, following the stream thence on foot to the low country. The lower course of the river had been explored 1868-1869 by another British traveller—St Vincent Whitshed Erskine. It was first navigated by a sea-going craft in 1884, when G. A. Chaddock of the British mercantile service succeeded in crossing the bar, while its lower course was accurately surveyed by Portuguese officers in 1895-1896. At the junction of the Lotsani, one of the Bechuanaland affluents, with the Limpopo, are ruins of the period of the Zimbabwes.

The Limpopo is a river of many names. In its upper course called the Crocodile that name is also applied to the whole river, which figures on old Portuguese maps as the Oori (or Oira) and Bembe. Though claiming the territory through which it ran the Portuguese made no attempt to trace the river. This was first done by Captain J. F. Elton, who in 1870 travelling from the Tati goldfields sought to open a road to the sea via the Limpopo. He voyaged down the river from the Shashi confluence to the Toli Azimé Falls, which he discovered, following the stream thence on foot to the low country. The lower course of the river had been explored 1868-1869 by another British traveller—St Vincent Whitshed Erskine. It was first navigated by a sea-going craft in 1884, when G. A. Chaddock of the British mercantile service succeeded in crossing the bar, while its lower course was accurately surveyed by Portuguese officers in 1895-1896. At the junction of the Lotsani, one of the Bechuanaland affluents, with the Limpopo, are ruins of the period of the Zimbabwes.

LINACRE(orLynaker),THOMAS(c.1460-1524), English humanist and physician, was probably born at Canterbury. Of his parentage or descent nothing certain is known. He received his early education at the cathedral school of Canterbury, then under the direction of William Celling (William Tilly of Selling), who became prior of Canterbury in 1472. Celling was an ardent scholar, and one of the earliest in England who cultivated Greek learning. From him Linacre must have received his first incentive to this study. Linacre entered Oxford about the year 1480, and in 1484 was elected a fellow of All Souls’ College. Shortly afterwards he visited Italy in the train of Celling, who was sent by Henry VIII. as an envoy to the papal court, and he accompanied his patron as far as Bologna. There he became the pupil of Angelo Poliziano, and afterwards shared the instruction which that great scholar imparted at Florence to the sons of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The younger of these princes became Pope Leo X., and was in after years mindful of his old companionship with Linacre. Among his other teachers and friends in Italy were Demetrius Chalcondylas, Hermolaus Barbaras, Aldus Romanus the printer of Venice, and Nicolaus Leonicenus of Vicenza. Linacre took the degree of doctor of medicine with great distinction at Padua. On his return to Oxford, full of the learning and imbued with the spirit of the Italian Renaissance, he formed one of the brilliant circle of Oxford scholars, including John Colet, William Grocyn and William Latimer, who are mentioned with so much warm eulogy in the letters of Erasmus.

Linacre does not appear to have practised or taught medicine in Oxford. About the year 1501 he was called to court as tutor of the young prince Arthur. On the accession of Henry VIII. he was appointed the king’s physician, an office at that time of considerable influence and importance, and practised medicine in London, having among his patients most of the great statesmen and prelates of the time, as Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fox.

After some years of professional activity, and when in advanced life, Linacre received priest’s orders in 1520, though he had for some years previously held several clerical benefices. There is no doubt that his ordination was connected with his retirement from active life. Literary labours, and the cares of the foundation which owed its existence chiefly to him, the Royal Collegeof Physicians, occupied Linacre’s remaining years till his death on the 20th of October 1524.

Linacre was more of a scholar than a man of letters, and rather a man of learning than a scientific investigator. It is difficult now to judge of his practical skill in his profession, but it was evidently highly esteemed in his own day. He took no part in political or theological questions, and died too soon to have to declare himself on either side in the formidable controversies which were even in his lifetime beginning to arise. But his career as a scholar was one eminently characteristic of the critical period in the history of learning through which he lived. He was one of the first Englishmen who studied Greek in Italy, whence he brought back to his native country and his own university the lessons of the “New Learning.” His teachers were some of the greatest scholars of the day. Among his pupils was one—Erasmus—whose name alone would suffice to preserve the memory of his instructor in Greek, and others of note in letters and politics, such as Sir Thomas More, Prince Arthur and Queen Mary. Colet, Grocyn, William Lilye and other eminent scholars were his intimate friends, and he was esteemed by a still wider circle of literary correspondents in all parts of Europe.

Linacre’s literary activity was displayed in two directions, in pure scholarship and in translation from the Greek. In the domain of scholarship he was known by the rudiments of (Latin) grammar (Progymnasmata Grammatices vulgaria), composed in English, a revised version of which was made for the use of the Princess Mary, and afterwards translated into Latin by Robert Buchanan. He also wrote a work on Latin composition,De emendata structura Latini sermonis, which was published in London in 1524 and many times reprinted on the continent of Europe.Linacre’s only medical works were his translations. He desired to make the works of Galen (and indeed those of Aristotle also) accessible to all readers of Latin. What he effected in the case of the first, though not trifling in itself, is inconsiderable as compared with the whole mass of Galen’s writings; and of his translations from Aristotle, some of which are known to have been completed, nothing has survived. The following are the works of Galen translated by Linacre: (1)De sanitate tuenda, printed at Paris in 1517; (2)Methodus medendi(Paris, 1519); (3)De temperamentis et de Inaequali Intemperie(Cambridge, 1521); (4)De naturalibus facultatibus(London, 1523); (5)De symptomatum differentiis et causis(London, 1524); (6)De pulsuum Usu(London, without date). He also translated for the use of Prince Arthur an astronomical treatise of Proclus,De sphaera, which was printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499. The accuracy of these translations and their elegance of style were universally admitted. They have been generally accepted as the standard versions of those parts of Galen’s writings, and frequently reprinted, either as a part of the collected works or separately.But the most important service which Linacre conferred upon his own profession and science was not by his writings. To him was chiefly owing the foundation by royal charter of the College of Physicians in London, and he was the first president of the new college, which he further aided by conveying to it his own house, and by the gift of his library. Shortly before his death Linacre obtained from the king letters patent for the establishment of readerships in medicine at Oxford and Cambridge, and placed valuable estates in the hands of trustees for their endowment. Two readerships were founded in Merton College, Oxford, and one in St John’s College, Cambridge, but owing to neglect and bad management of the funds, they fell into uselessness and obscurity. The Oxford foundation was revived by the university commissioners in 1856 in the form of the Linacre professorship of anatomy. Posterity has done justice to the generosity and public spirit which prompted these foundations; and it is impossible not to recognize a strong constructive genius in the scheme of the College of Physicians, by which Linacre not only first organized the medical profession in England, but impressed upon it for some centuries the stamp of his own individuality.The intellectual fastidiousness of Linacre, and his habits of minute accuracy were, as Erasmus suggests, the chief cause why he left no more permanent literary memorials. It will be found, perhaps, difficult to justify by any extant work the extremely high reputation which he enjoyed among the scholars of his time. His Latin style was so much admired that, according to the flattering eulogium of Erasmus, Galen spoke better Latin in the version of Linacre than he had before spoken Greek; and even Aristotle displayed a grace which he hardly attained to in his native tongue. Erasmus praises also Linacre’s critical judgment (“vir non exacti tantum sed severi judicii”). According to others it was hard to say whether he were more distinguished as a grammarian or a rhetorician. Of Greek he was regarded as a consummate master; and he was equally eminent as a “philosopher,” that is, as learned in the works of the ancient philosophers and naturalists. In this there may have been some exaggeration; but all have acknowledged the elevation of Linacre’s character, and the fine moral qualities summed up in the epitaph written by John Caius: “Fraudes dolosque mire perosus; fidus amicis; omnibus ordinibus juxta carus.”The materials for Linacre’s biography are to a large extent contained in the older biographical collections of George Lilly (in Paulus Jovius,Descriptio Britanniae), Bale, Leland and Pits, in Wood’sAthenae Oxoniensesand in theBiographia Britannica; but all are completely collected in theLife of Thomas Linacre, by Dr Noble Johnson (London, 1835). Reference may also be made to Dr Munk’sRoll of the Royal College of Physicians(2nd ed., London, 1878); and the Introduction, by Dr J. F. Payne, to a facsimile reproduction of Linacre’s version ofGalen de temperamentis(Cambridge, 1881). With the exception of this treatise, none of Linacre’s works or translations has been reprinted in modern times.

Linacre’s only medical works were his translations. He desired to make the works of Galen (and indeed those of Aristotle also) accessible to all readers of Latin. What he effected in the case of the first, though not trifling in itself, is inconsiderable as compared with the whole mass of Galen’s writings; and of his translations from Aristotle, some of which are known to have been completed, nothing has survived. The following are the works of Galen translated by Linacre: (1)De sanitate tuenda, printed at Paris in 1517; (2)Methodus medendi(Paris, 1519); (3)De temperamentis et de Inaequali Intemperie(Cambridge, 1521); (4)De naturalibus facultatibus(London, 1523); (5)De symptomatum differentiis et causis(London, 1524); (6)De pulsuum Usu(London, without date). He also translated for the use of Prince Arthur an astronomical treatise of Proclus,De sphaera, which was printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499. The accuracy of these translations and their elegance of style were universally admitted. They have been generally accepted as the standard versions of those parts of Galen’s writings, and frequently reprinted, either as a part of the collected works or separately.

But the most important service which Linacre conferred upon his own profession and science was not by his writings. To him was chiefly owing the foundation by royal charter of the College of Physicians in London, and he was the first president of the new college, which he further aided by conveying to it his own house, and by the gift of his library. Shortly before his death Linacre obtained from the king letters patent for the establishment of readerships in medicine at Oxford and Cambridge, and placed valuable estates in the hands of trustees for their endowment. Two readerships were founded in Merton College, Oxford, and one in St John’s College, Cambridge, but owing to neglect and bad management of the funds, they fell into uselessness and obscurity. The Oxford foundation was revived by the university commissioners in 1856 in the form of the Linacre professorship of anatomy. Posterity has done justice to the generosity and public spirit which prompted these foundations; and it is impossible not to recognize a strong constructive genius in the scheme of the College of Physicians, by which Linacre not only first organized the medical profession in England, but impressed upon it for some centuries the stamp of his own individuality.

The intellectual fastidiousness of Linacre, and his habits of minute accuracy were, as Erasmus suggests, the chief cause why he left no more permanent literary memorials. It will be found, perhaps, difficult to justify by any extant work the extremely high reputation which he enjoyed among the scholars of his time. His Latin style was so much admired that, according to the flattering eulogium of Erasmus, Galen spoke better Latin in the version of Linacre than he had before spoken Greek; and even Aristotle displayed a grace which he hardly attained to in his native tongue. Erasmus praises also Linacre’s critical judgment (“vir non exacti tantum sed severi judicii”). According to others it was hard to say whether he were more distinguished as a grammarian or a rhetorician. Of Greek he was regarded as a consummate master; and he was equally eminent as a “philosopher,” that is, as learned in the works of the ancient philosophers and naturalists. In this there may have been some exaggeration; but all have acknowledged the elevation of Linacre’s character, and the fine moral qualities summed up in the epitaph written by John Caius: “Fraudes dolosque mire perosus; fidus amicis; omnibus ordinibus juxta carus.”

The materials for Linacre’s biography are to a large extent contained in the older biographical collections of George Lilly (in Paulus Jovius,Descriptio Britanniae), Bale, Leland and Pits, in Wood’sAthenae Oxoniensesand in theBiographia Britannica; but all are completely collected in theLife of Thomas Linacre, by Dr Noble Johnson (London, 1835). Reference may also be made to Dr Munk’sRoll of the Royal College of Physicians(2nd ed., London, 1878); and the Introduction, by Dr J. F. Payne, to a facsimile reproduction of Linacre’s version ofGalen de temperamentis(Cambridge, 1881). With the exception of this treatise, none of Linacre’s works or translations has been reprinted in modern times.

LINARES,an inland province of central Chile, between Talca on the N. and Ńuble on the S., bounded E. by Argentina and W. by the province of Maule. Pop. (1895) 101,858; area, 3942 sq. m. The river Maule forms its northern boundary and drains its northern and north-eastern regions. The province belongs partly to the great central valley of Chile and partly to the western slopes of the Andes, the S. Pedro volcano rising to a height of 11,800 ft. not far from the sources of the Maule. The northern part is fertile, as are the valleys of the Andean foothills, but arid conditions prevail throughout the central districts, and irrigation is necessary for the production of crops. The vine is cultivated to some extent, and good pasturage is found on the Andean slopes. The province is traversed from N. to S. by the Chilean Central railway, and the river Maule gives access to the small port of Constitucion, at its mouth. From Parral, near the southern boundary, a branch railway extends westward to Cauquenes, the capital of Maule. The capital, Linares, is centrally situated, on an open plain, about 20 m. S. of the river Maule. It had a population of 7331 in 1895 (which an official estimate of 1902 reduced to 7256). Parral (pop. 8586 in 1895; est. 10,219 in 1902) is a railway junction and manufacturing town.

LINARES,a town of southern Spain, in the province of Jaen, among the southern foothills of the Sierra Morena, 1375 ft. above sea-level and 3 m. N.W. of the river Guadalimar. Pop. (1900) 38,245. It is connected by four branch railways with the important argentiferous lead mines on the north-west, and with the main railways from Madrid to Seville, Granada and the principal ports on the south coast. The town was greatly improved in the second half of the 19th century, when the town hall, bull-ring, theatre and many other handsome buildings were erected; it contains little of antiquarian interest save a fine fountain of Roman origin. Its population is chiefly engaged in the lead-mines, and in such allied industries as the manufacture of gunpowder, dynamite, match for blasting purposes, rope and the like. The mining plant is entirely imported, principally from England; and smelting, desilverizing and the manufacture of lead sheets, pipes, &c., are carried on by British firms, which also purchase most of the ore raised. Linares lead is unsurpassed in quality, but the output tends to decrease. There is a thriving local trade in grain, wine and oil. About 2 m. S. is the village of Cazlona, which shows some remains of the ancientCastulo. The ancient mines some 5 m. N., which are now known as Los Pozos de Anibal, may possibly date from the 3rd centuryB.C., when this part of Spain was ruled by the Carthaginians.

LINCOLN, EARLS OF.The first earl of Lincoln was probably William de Roumare (c.1095-c.1155), who was created earl about 1140, although it is possible that William de Albini, earl of Arundel, had previously held the earldom. Roumare’s grandson, another William de Roumare (c.1150-c.1198), is sometimes called earl of Lincoln, but he was never recognized as such, and about 1148 King Stephen granted the earldom to one of his supporters, Gilbert de Gand (d. 1156), who was related to the former earl. After Gilbert’s death the earldom was dormant for about sixty years; then in 1216 it was given to another Gilbert de Gand, and later it was claimed by the great earl of Chester, Ranulf, or Randulph, de Blundevill (d. 1232). From Ranulf the title to the earldom passed through his sister Hawise to the family of Lacy, John de Lacy (d. 1240) being made earl of Lincoln in 1232. He was son of Roger de Lacy (d. 1212), justiciarof England and constable of Chester. It was held by the Lacys until the death of Henry, the 3rd earl. Henry served Edward I. in Wales, France and Scotland, both as a soldier and a diplomatist. He went to France with Edmund, earl of Lancaster, in 1296, and when Edmund died in June of this year, succeeded him as commander of the English forces in Gascony; but he did not experience any great success in this capacity and returned to England early in 1298. The earl fought at the battle of Falkirk in July 1298, and took some part in the subsequent conquest of Scotland. He was then employed by Edward to negotiate successively with popes Boniface VIII. and Clement V., and also with Philip IV. of France; and was present at the death of the English king in July 1307. For a short time Lincoln was friendly with the new king, Edward II., and his favourite, Piers Gaveston; but quickly changing his attitude, he joined earl Thomas of Lancaster and the baronial party, was one of the “ordainers” appointed in 1310 and was regent of the kingdom during the king’s absence in Scotland in the same year. He died in London on the 5th of February 1311, and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. He married Margaret (d. 1309), granddaughter and heiress of William Longsword, 2nd earl of Salisbury, and his only surviving child, Alice (1283-1348), became the wife of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, who thus inherited his father-in-law’s earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. Lincoln’s Inn in London gets its name from the earl, whose London residence occupied this site. He founded Whalley Abbey in Lancashire, and built Denbigh Castle.

In 1349 Henry Plantagenet, earl (afterwards duke) of Lancaster, a nephew of Earl Thomas, was created earl of Lincoln; and when his grandson Henry became king of England as Henry IV. in 1399 the title merged in the crown. In 1467 John de la Pole (c.1464-1487), a nephew of Edward IV., was made earl of Lincoln, and the same dignity was conferred in 1525 upon Henry Brandon (1516-1545), son of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. Both died without sons, and the next family to hold the earldom was that of Clinton.

Edward Fiennes Clinton, 9th Lord Clinton (1512-1585), lord high admiral and the husband of Henry VIII.’s mistress, Elizabeth Blount, was created earl of Lincoln in 1572. Before his elevation he had rendered very valuable services both on sea and land to Edward VI., to Mary and to Elizabeth, and he was in the confidence of the leading men of these reigns, including William Cecil, Lord Burghley. From 1572 until the present day the title has been held by Clinton’s descendants. In 1768 Henry Clinton, the 9th earl (1720-1794), succeeded his uncle Thomas Pelham as 2nd duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, and since this date the title of earl of Lincoln has been the courtesy title of the eldest son of the duke of Newcastle.

See G. E. C.(okayne),Complete Peerage, vol. v. (1893).

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM(1809-1865), sixteenth president of the United States of America, was born on “Rock Spring” farm, 3 m. from Hodgenville, in Hardin (now Larue) county, Kentucky, on the 12th of February 1809.1His grandfather,2Abraham Lincoln, settled in Kentucky about 1780 and was killed by Indians in 1784. His father, Thomas (1778-1851), was born in Rockingham (then Augusta) county, Virginia; he was hospitable, shiftless, restless and unsuccessful, working now as a carpenter and now as a farmer, and could not read or write before his marriage, in Washington county, Kentucky, on the 12th of June 1806, to Nancy Hanks (1783-1818), who was, like him, a native of Virginia, but had much more strength of character and native ability, and seemed to have been, in intellect and character, distinctly above the social class in which she was born. The Lincolns had removed from Elizabethtown, Hardin county, their first home, to the Rock Spring farm, only a short time before Abraham’s birth; about 1813 they removed to a farm of 238 acres on Knob Creek, about 6 m. from Hodgenville; and in 1816 they crossed the Ohio river and settled on a quarter-section, 1½ m. E. of the present village of Gentryville, in Spencer county, Indiana. There Abraham’s mother died on the 5th of October 1818. In December 1819 his father married, at his old home, Elizabethtown, Mrs Sarah (Bush) Johnston (d. 1869), whom he had courted years before, whose thrift greatly improved conditions in the home, and who exerted a great influence over her stepson. Spencer county was still a wilderness, and the boy grew up in pioneer surroundings, living in a rude log-cabin, enduring many hardships and knowing only the primitive manners, conversation and ambitions of sparsely settled backwoods communities. Schools were rare, and teachers qualified only to impart the merest rudiments. “Of course when I came of age I did not know much,” wrote he years afterward, “still somehow I could read, write and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.” His entire schooling, in five different schools, amounted to less than a twelvemonth; but he became a good speller and an excellent penman. His own mother taught him to read, and his stepmother urged him to study. He read and re-read in early boyhood the Bible, Aesop,Robinson Crusoe,Pilgrim’s Progress, Weems’sLife of Washingtonand a history of the United States; and later read every book he could borrow from the neighbours, Burns and Shakespeare becoming favourites. He wrote rude, coarse satires, crude verse, and compositions on the American government, temperance, &c. At the age of seventeen he had attained his full height, and began to be known as a wrestler, runner and lifter of great weights. When nineteen he made a journey as a hired hand on a flatboat to New Orleans.

In March 1830 his father emigrated to Macon county, Illinois (near the present Decatur), and soon afterward removed to Coles county. Being now twenty-one years of age, Abraham hired himself to Denton Offutt, a migratory trader and storekeeper then of Sangamon county, and he helped Offutt to build a flatboat and float it down the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. In 1831 Offutt made him clerk of his country store at New Salem, a small and unsuccessful settlement in Menard county; this gave him moments of leisure to devote to self-education. He borrowed a grammar and other books, sought explanations from the village schoolmaster and began to read law. In this frontier community law and politics claimed a large proportion of the stronger and the more ambitious men; the law early appealed to Lincoln and his general popularity encouraged him as early as 1832 to enter politics. In this year Offutt failed and Lincoln was thus left without employment. He became a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives; and on the 9th of March 1832 issued an address “To the people of Sangamon county” which betokens talent and education far beyond mere ability to “read, write and cipher,” though in its preparation he seems to have had the help of a friend. Before the election the Black Hawk Indian War broke out; Lincoln volunteered in one of the Sangamon county companies on the 21st of April and was elected captain by the members of the company. It is said that the oath of allegiance was administered to Lincoln at this time by Lieut. Jefferson Davis. The company, a part of the 4th Illinois, was mustered out after the five weeks’ service for which it volunteered, and Lincoln re-enlisted as a private on the 29th of May, and was finally mustered out on the 16th of June by Lieut. Robert Anderson, who in 1861 commanded the Union troops at Fort Sumter. As captain Lincoln was twice in disgrace, once for firing a pistol near camp and again because nearly his entire company was intoxicated. He was in no battle, and always spoke lightly of his military record. He was defeated in his campaign for the legislature in1832, partly because of his unpopular adherence to Clay and the American system, but in his own election precinct, he received nearly all the votes cast. With a friend, William Berry, he then bought a small country store, which soon failed chiefly because of the drunken habits of Berry and because Lincoln preferred to read and to tell stories—he early gained local celebrity as a story-teller—rather than sell; about this time he got hold of a set of Blackstone. In the spring of 1833 the store’s stock was sold to satisfy its creditors, and Lincoln assumed the firm’s debts, which he did not fully pay off for fifteen years. In May 1833, local friendship, disregarding politics, procured his appointment as postmaster of New Salem, but this paid him very little, and in the same year the county surveyor of Sangamon county opportunely offered to make him one of his deputies. He hastily qualified himself by study, and entered upon the practical duties of surveying farm lines, roads and town sites. “This,” to use his own words, “procured bread, and kept body and soul together.”

In 1834 Lincoln was elected (second of four successful candidates, with only 14 fewer votes than the first) a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, to which he was re-elected in 1836, 1838 and 1840, serving until 1842. In his announcement of his candidacy in 1836 he promised to vote for Hugh L. White of Tennessee (a vigorous opponent of Andrew Jackson in Tennessee politics) for president, and said: “I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females)”—a sentiment frequently quoted to prove Lincoln a believer in woman’s suffrage. In this election he led the poll in Sangamon county. In the legislature, like the other representatives of that county, who were called the “Long Nine,” because of their stature, he worked for internal improvements, for which lavish appropriations were made, and for the division of Sangamon county and the choice of Springfield as the state capital, instead of Vandalia. He and his party colleagues followed Stephen A. Douglas in adopting the convention system, to which Lincoln had been strongly opposed. In 1837 with one other representative from Sangamon county, named Dan Stone, he protested against a series of resolutions, adopted by the Illinois General Assembly, expressing disapproval of the formation of abolition societies and asserting, among other things, that “the right of property in slaves is sacred to the slave holding states under the Federal Constitution”; and Lincoln and Stone put out a paper in which they expressed their belief “that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils,” “that the Congress of the United States has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different states,” “that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of the District.” Lincoln was very popular among his fellow legislators, and in 1838 and in 1840 he received the complimentary vote of his minority colleagues for the speakership of the state House of Representatives. In 1842 he declined a renomination to the state legislature and attempted unsuccessfully to secure a nomination to Congress. In the same year he became interested in the Washingtonian temperance movement.

In 1846 he was elected a member of the National House of Representatives by a majority of 1511 over his Democratic opponent, Peter Cartwright, the Methodist preacher. Lincoln was the only Whig member of Congress elected in Illinois in 1846. In the House of Representatives on the 22nd of December 1847 he introduced the “Spot Resolutions,” which quoted statements in the president’s messages of the 11th of May 1846 and the 7th and 8th of December that Mexican troops had invaded the territory of the United States, and asked the president to tell the precise “spot” of invasion; he made a speech on these resolutions in the House on the 12th of January 1848. His attitude toward the war and especially his vote for George Ashmun’s amendment to the supply bill at this session, declaring that the Mexican War was “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President,” greatly displeased his constituents. He later introduced a bill regarding slavery in the District of Columbia, which (in accordance with his statement of 1837) was to be submitted to the vote of the District for approval, and which provided for compensated emancipation, forbade the bringing of slaves into the District of Columbia, except by government officials from slave states, and the selling of slaves away from the District, and arranged for the emancipation after a period of apprenticeship of all slave children born after the 1st of January 1850. While he was in Congress he voted repeatedly for the principle of the Wilmot Proviso. At the close of his term in 1848 he declined an appointment as governor of the newly organized Territory of Oregon and for a time worked, without success, for an appointment as Commissioner of the General Land Office. During the presidential campaign he made speeches in Illinois, and in Massachusetts he spoke before the Whig State Convention at Worcester on the 12th of September, and in the next ten days at Lowell, Dedham, Roxbury, Chelsea, Cambridge and Boston. He had become an eloquent and influential public speaker, and in 1840 and 1844 was a candidate on the Whig ticket for presidential elector.

In 1834 his political friend and colleague John Todd Stuart (1807-1885), a lawyer in full practice, had urged him to fit himself for the bar, and had lent him text-books; and Lincoln, working diligently, was admitted to the bar in September 1836. In April 1837 he quitted New Salem, and removed to Springfield, which was the county-seat and was soon to become the capital of the state, to begin practice in a partnership with Stuart, which was terminated in April 1841; from that time until September 1843 he was junior partner to Stephen Trigg Logan (1800-1880), and from 1843 until his death he was senior partner of William Henry Herndon (1818-1891). Between 1849 and 1854 he took little part in politics, devoted himself to the law and became one of the leaders of the Illinois bar. His small fees—he once charged $3.50 for collecting an account of nearly $600.00—his frequent refusals to take cases which he did not think right and his attempts to prevent unnecessary litigation have become proverbial. Judge David Davis, who knew Lincoln on the Illinois circuit and whom Lincoln made in October 1862 an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, said that he was “great both atnisi priusand before an appellate tribunal.” He was an excellent cross-examiner, whose candid friendliness of manner often succeeded in eliciting important testimony from unwilling witnesses. Among Lincoln’s most famous cases were: one (Baileyv.Cromwell, 4 Ill. 71; frequently cited) before the Illinois Supreme Court in July 1841 in which he argued against the validity of a note in payment for a negro girl, adducing the Ordinance of 1787 and other authorities; a case (tried in Chicago in September 1857) for the Rock Island railway, sued for damages by the owners of a steamboat sunk after collision with a railway bridge, a trial in which Lincoln brought to the service of his client a surveyor’s knowledge of mathematics and a riverman’s acquaintance with currents and channels, and argued that crossing a stream by bridge was as truly a common right as navigating it by boat, thus contributing to the success of Chicago and railway commerce in the contest against St Louis and river transportation; the defence (at Beardstown in May 1858) on the charge of murder of William (“Duff”) Armstrong, son of one of Lincoln’s New Salem friends, whom Lincoln freed by controverting with the help of an almanac the testimony of a crucial witness that between 10 and 11 o’clock at night he had seen by moonlight the defendant strike the murderous blow—this dramatic incident is described in Edward Eggleston’s novel,The Graysons; and the defence on the charge of murder (committed in August 1859) of “Peachy” Harrison, a grandson of Peter Cartwright, whose testimony was used with great effect.

From law, however, Lincoln was soon drawn irresistibly back into politics. The slavery question, in one form or another,had become the great overshadowing issue in national, and even in state politics; the abolition movement, begun in earnest by W. L. Garrison in 1831, had stirred the conscience of the North, and had had its influence even upon many who strongly deprecated its extreme radicalism; the Compromise of 1850 had failed to silence sectional controversy, and the Fugitive Slave Law, which was one of the compromise measures, had throughout the North been bitterly assailed and to a considerable extent had been nullified by state legislation; and finally in 1854 the slavery agitation was fomented by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and gave legislative sanction to the principle of “popular sovereignty”—the principle that the inhabitants of each Territory as well as of each state were to be left free to decide for themselves whether or not slavery was to be permitted therein. In enacting this measure Congress had been dominated largely by one man—Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois—then probably the most powerful figure in national politics. Lincoln had early put himself on record as opposed to slavery, but he was never technically an abolitionist; he allied himself rather with those who believed that slavery should be fought within the Constitution, that, though it could not be constitutionally interfered with in individual states, it should be excluded from territory over which the national government had jurisdiction. In this, as in other things, he was eminently clear-sighted and practical. Already he had shown his capacity as a forcible and able debater; aroused to new activity upon the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which he regarded as a gross breach of political faith, he now entered upon public discussion with an earnestness and force that by common consent gave him leadership in Illinois of the opposition, which in 1854 elected a majority of the legislature; and it gradually became clear that he was the only man who could be opposed in debate to the powerful and adroit Douglas. He was elected to the state House of Representatives, from which he immediately resigned to become a candidate for United States senator from Illinois, to succeed James Shields, a Democrat; but five opposition members, of Democratic antecedents, refused to vote for Lincoln (on the second ballot he received 47 votes—50 being necessary to elect) and he turned the votes which he controlled over to Lyman Trumbull, who was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and thus secured the defeat of Joel Aldrich Matteson (1808-1883), who favoured this act and who on the eighth ballot had received 47 votes to 35 for Trumbull and 15 for Lincoln. The various anti-Nebraska elements came together, in Illinois as elsewhere, to form a new party at a time when the old parties were disintegrating; and in 1856 the Republican party was formally organized in the state. Lincoln before the state convention at Bloomington of “all opponents of anti-Nebraska legislation” (the first Republican state convention in Illinois) made on the 29th of May a notable address known as the “Lost Speech.” The National Convention of the Republican Party in 1856 cast 110 votes for Lincoln as its vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with Fremont, and he was on the Republican electoral ticket of this year, and made effective campaign speeches in the interest of the new party. The campaign in the state resulted substantially in a drawn battle, the Democrats gaining a majority in the state for president, while the Republicans elected the governor and state officers. In 1858 the term of Douglas in the United States Senate was expiring, and he sought re-election. On the 16th of June 1858 by unanimous resolution of the Republican state convention Lincoln was declared “the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas,” who was the choice of his own party to succeed himself. Lincoln, addressing the convention which nominated him, gave expression to the following bold prophecy:—

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new—North as well as South.”

In this speech, delivered in the state House of Representatives, Lincoln charged Pierce, Buchanan, Taney and Douglas with conspiracy to secure the Dred Scott decision. Yielding to the wish of his party friends, on the 24th of July, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a joint public discussion.3The antagonists met in debate at seven designated places in the state. The first meeting was at Ottawa, La Salle County, about 90 m. south-west of Chicago, on the 21st of August. At Freeport, on the Wisconsin boundary, on the 27th of August, Lincoln answered questions put to him by Douglas, and by his questions forced Douglas to “betray the South” by his enunciation of the “Freeport heresy,” that, no matter what the character of Congressional legislation or the Supreme Court’s decision “slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police regulations.” This adroit attempt to reconcile the principle of popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision, though it undoubtedly helped Douglas in the immediate fight for the senatorship, necessarily alienated his Southern supporters and assured his defeat, as Lincoln foresaw it must, in the presidential campaign of 1860. The other debates were: at Jonesboro, in the southern part of the state, on the 15th of September; at Charleston, 150 m. N.E. of Jonesboro, on the 18th of September; and, in the western part of the state, at Galesburg (Oct. 7), Quincy (Oct. 13) and Alton (Oct. 15). In these debates Douglas, the champion of his party, was over-matched in clearness and force of reasoning, and lacked the great moral earnestness of his opponent; but he dexterously extricated himself time and again from difficult argumentative positions, and retained sufficient support to win the immediate prize. At the November election the Republican vote was 126,084, the Douglas Democratic vote was 121,940 and the Lecompton (or Buchanan) Democratic vote was 5091; but the Democrats, through a favourable apportionment of representative districts, secured a majority of the legislature (Senate: 14 Democrats, 11 Republicans; House: 40 Democrats, 35 Republicans), which re-elected Douglas. Lincoln’s speeches in this campaign won him a national fame. In 1859 he made two speeches in Ohio—one at Columbus on the 16th of September criticising Douglas’s paper in the SeptemberHarper’s Magazine, and one at Cincinnati on the 17th of September, which was addressed to Kentuckians,—and he spent a few days in Kansas, speaking in Elwood, Troy, Doniphan, Atchison and Leavenworth, in the first week of December. On the 27th of February 1860 in Cooper Union, New York City, he made a speech (much the same as that delivered in Elwood, Kansas, on the 1st of December) which made him known favourably to the leaders of the Republican party in the East and which was a careful historical study criticising the statement of Douglas in one of his speeches in Ohio that “our fathers when they framed the government under which we live understood this question [slavery] just as well and even better than we do now,” and Douglas’s contention that “the fathers” made the country (and intended that it should remain) part slave. Lincoln pointed out that the majority of the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 opposed slavery and that they did not think that Congress had no power to control slavery in the Territories. He spoke at Concord,Manchester, Exeter and Dover in New Hampshire, at Hartford (5th March), New Haven (6th March), Woonsocket (8th March) and Norwich (9th March). The Illinois State Convention of the Republican party, held at Decatur on the 9th and 10th of May 1860, amid great enthusiasm declared Abraham Lincoln its first choice for the presidential nomination, and instructed the delegation to the National Convention to cast the vote of the state as a unit for him.

The Republican national convention, which made “No Extension of Slavery” the essential part of the party platform, met at Chicago on the 16th of May 1860. At this time William H. Seward was the most conspicuous Republican in national politics, and Salmon P. Chase had long been in the fore-front of the political contest against slavery. Both had won greater national fame than had Lincoln, and, before the convention met, each hoped to be nominated for president. Chase, however, had little chance, and the contest was virtually between Seward and Lincoln, who by many was considered more “available,” because it was thought that he could (and Seward could not) secure the vote of certain doubtful states. Lincoln’s name was presented by Illinois and seconded by Indiana. At first Seward had the strongest support. On the first ballot Lincoln received only 102 votes to 173½ for Seward. On the second ballot Lincoln received 181 votes to Seward’s 184½. On the third ballot the 50½ votes formerly given to Simon Cameron4were given to Lincoln, who received 231½ votes to 180 for Seward, and without taking another ballot enough votes were changed to make Lincoln’s total 354 (233 being necessary for a choice) and the nomination was then made unanimous. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for the vice-presidency. The convention was singularly tumultuous and noisy; large claques were hired by both Lincoln’s and Seward’s managers. During the campaign Lincoln remained in Springfield, making few speeches and writing practically no letters for publication. The campaign was unusually animated—only the Whig campaign for William Henry Harrison in 1840 is comparable to it: there were great torchlight processions of “wide-awake” clubs, which did “rail-fence,” or zigzag, marches, and carried rails in honour of their candidate, the “rail-splitter.” Lincoln was elected by a popular vote of 1,866,452 to 1,375,157 for Douglas, 847,953 for Breckinridge and 590,631 for Bell—as the combined vote of his opponents was so much greater than his own he was often called “the minority president”; the electoral vote was: Lincoln, 180; John C. Breckinridge, 72; John Bell, 39; Stephen A. Douglas, 12. On the 4th of March 1861 Lincoln was inaugurated as president. (For an account of his administration seeUnited States:History.)

During the campaign radical leaders in the South frequently asserted that the success of the Republicans at the polls would mean that the rights of the slave-holding states under the Federal constitution, as interpreted by them, would no longer be respected by the North, and that, if Lincoln were elected, it would be the duty of these slave-holding states to secede from the Union. There was much opposition in these states to such a course, but the secessionists triumphed, and by the time President Lincoln was inaugurated, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas had formally withdrawn from the Union. A provisional government under the designation “The Confederate States of America,” with Jefferson Davis as president, was organized by the seceding states, which seized by force nearly all the forts, arsenals and public buildings within their limits. Great division of sentiment existed in the North, whether in this emergency acquiescence or coercion was the preferable policy. Lincoln’s inaugural address declared the Union perpetual and acts of secession void, and announced the determination of the government to defend its authority, and to hold forts and places yet in its possession. He disclaimed any intention to invade, subjugate or oppress the seceding states. “You can have no conflict,” he said, “without being yourselves the aggressors.” Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbour, had been besieged by the secessionists since January; and, it being now on the point of surrender through starvation, Lincoln sent the besiegers official notice on the 8th of April that a fleet was on its way to carry provisions to the fort, but that he would not attempt to reinforce it unless this effort were resisted. The Confederates, however, immediately ordered its reduction, and after a thirty-four hours’ bombardment the garrison capitulated on the 13th of April 1861. (For the military history of the war, seeAmerican Civil War.)

With civil war thus provoked, Lincoln, on the 15th of April, by proclamation called 75,000 three months’ militia under arms, and on the 4th of May ordered the further enlistment of 64,748 soldiers and 18,000 seamen for three years’ service. He instituted by proclamation of the 19th of April a blockade of the Southern ports, took effective steps to extemporize a navy, convened Congress in special session (on the 4th of July), and asked for legislation and authority to make the war “short, sharp and decisive.” The country responded with enthusiasm to his summons and suggestions; and the South on its side was not less active.

The slavery question presented vexatious difficulties in conducting the war. Congress in August 1861 passed an act (approved August 6th) confiscating rights of slave-owners to slaves employed in hostile service against the Union. On the 30th of August General Fremont by military order declared martial law and confiscation against active enemies, with freedom to their slaves, in the State of Missouri. Believing that under existing conditions such a step was both detrimental in present policy and unauthorized in law, President Lincoln directed him (2nd September) to modify the order to make it conform to the Confiscation Act of Congress, and on the 11th of September annulled the parts of the order which conflicted with this act. Strong political factions were instantly formed for and against military emancipation, and the government was hotly beset by antagonistic counsel. The Unionists of the border slave states were greatly alarmed, but Lincoln by his moderate conservatism held them to the military support of the government.5Meanwhile he sagaciously prepared the way for the supreme act of statesmanship which the gathering national crisis already dimly foreshadowed. On the 6th of March 1862, he sent a special message to Congress recommending the passage of a resolution offering pecuniary aid from the general government to induce states to adopt gradual abolishment of slavery. Promptly passed by Congress, the resolution produced no immediate result except in its influence on public opinion. A practical step, however, soon followed. In April Congress passed and the president approved (6th April) an act emancipating the slaves in the District of Columbia, with compensation to owners—a measure which Lincoln had proposed when in Congress. Meanwhile slaves of loyal masters were constantly escaping to military camps. Some commanders excluded them altogether; others surrendered them on demand; while still others sheltered and protected them against their owners. Lincoln tolerated this latitude as falling properly within the military discretion pertaining to local army operations. A new case, however, soon demanded his official interference. On the 9th of May 1862 General David Hunter, commanding in the limited areas gained along the southern coast, issued a short order declaring his department under martial law, and adding—“Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—heretoforeheld as slaves are, therefore, declared for ever free.” As soon as this order, by the slow method of communication by sea, reached the newspapers, Lincoln (May 19) published a proclamation declaring it void; adding further, “Whether it be competent for me as commander-in-chief of the army and navy to declare the slaves of any state or states free, and whether at any time or in any case it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which under my responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies or camps.” But in the same proclamation Lincoln recalled to the public his own proposal and the assent of Congress to compensate states which would adopt voluntary and gradual abolishment. “To the people of these states now,” he added, “I must earnestly appeal. I do not argue. I beseech you to make the argument for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times.” Meanwhile the anti-slavery sentiment of the North constantly increased. Congress by express act (approved on the 19th of June) prohibited the existence of slavery in all territories outside of states. On July the 12th the president called the representatives of the border slave states to the executive mansion, and once more urged upon them his proposal of compensated emancipation. “If the war continues long,” he said, “as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion—by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it.” Although Lincoln’s appeal brought the border states to no practical decision—the representatives of these states almost without exception opposed the plan—it served to prepare public opinion for his final act. During the month of July his own mind reached the virtual determination to give slavery itscoup de grâce; on the 17th he approved a new Confiscation Act, much broader than that of the 6th of August 1861 (which freed only those slaves in military service against the Union) and giving to the president power to employ persons of African descent for the suppression of the rebellion; and on the 22nd he submitted to his cabinet the draft of an emancipation proclamation substantially as afterward issued. Serious military reverses constrained him for the present to withhold it, while on the other hand they served to increase the pressure upon him from anti-slavery men. Horace Greeley having addressed a public letter to him complaining of “the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the rebels,” the president replied on the 22nd of August, saying, “My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and, if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” Thus still holding back violent reformers with one hand, and leading up halting conservatives with the other, he on the 13th of September replied among other things to an address from a delegation: “I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative like the pope’s bull against the comet.... I view this matter as a practical war measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.... I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement.”

The year 1862 had opened with important Union victories. Admiral A. H. Foote captured Fort Henry on the 6th of February, and Gen. U. S. Grant captured Fort Donelson on the 16th of February, and won the battle of Shiloh on the 6th and 7th of April. Gen. A. E. Burnside took possession of Roanoke island on the North Carolina coast (7th February). The famous contest between the new ironclads “Monitor” and “Merrimac” (9th April), though indecisive, effectually stopped the career of the Confederate vessel, which was later destroyed by the Confederates themselves. (SeeHampton Roads.) Farragut, with a wooden fleet, ran past the twin forts St Philip and Jackson, compelled the surrender of New Orleans (26th April), and gained control of the lower Mississippi. The succeeding three months brought disaster and discouragement to the Union army. M’Clellan’s campaign against Richmond was made abortive by his timorous generalship, and compelled the withdrawal of his army. Pope’s army, advancing against the same city by another line, was beaten back upon Washington in defeat. The tide of war, however, once more turned in the defeat of Lee’s invading army at South Mountain and Antietam in Maryland on the 14th and on the 16th and 17th of September, compelling him to retreat.

With public opinion thus ripened by alternate defeat and victory, President Lincoln, on the 22nd of September 1862, issued his preliminary proclamation of emancipation, giving notice that on the 1st of January 1863, “all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward and for ever free.” In his message to Congress on the 1st of December following, he again urged his plan of gradual, compensated emancipation (to be completed on the 1st of December 1900) “as a means, not in exclusion of, but additional to, all others for restoring and preserving the national authority throughout the Union.” On the 1st day of January 1863 the final proclamation of emancipation was duly issued, designating the States of Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and certain portions of Louisiana and Virginia, as “this day in rebellion against the United States,” and proclaiming that, in virtue of his authority as commander-in-chief, and as a necessary war measure for suppressing rebellion, “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are and henceforward shall be free,” and pledging the executive and military power of the government to maintain such freedom. The legal validity of these proclamations was never pronounced upon by the national courts; but their decrees gradually enforced by the march of armies were soon recognized by public opinion to be practically irreversible.6Such dissatisfaction as they caused in the border slave states died out in the stress of war. The systematic enlistment of negroes and their incorporation into the army by regiments, hitherto only tried as exceptional experiments, were now pushed with vigour, and, being followed by several conspicuous instances of their gallantry on the battlefield, added another strong impulse to the sweeping change of popular sentiment. To put the finality of emancipation beyond all question, Lincoln in the winter session of 1863-1864 strongly supported a movement in Congress to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment, but the necessary two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives could not then be obtained. In his annual message of the 6th of December 1864, he urged the immediate passage of the measure. Congress now acted promptly: on the 31st of January 1865, that body by joint resolution proposed to the states the 13th amendment of the Federal Constitution, providing that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Before the end of that year twenty-seven out of the thirty-six states of the Union (being the required three-fourths) had ratified theamendment, and official proclamation made by President Johnson on the 18th of December 1865, declared it duly adopted.

The foreign policy of President Lincoln, while subordinate in importance to the great questions of the Civil War, nevertheless presented several difficult and critical problems for his decision. The arrest (8th of November 1861) by Captain Charles Wilkes of two Confederate envoys proceeding to Europe in the British steamer “Trent” seriously threatened peace with England. Public opinion in America almost unanimously sustained the act; but Lincoln, convinced that the rights of Great Britain as a neutral had been violated, promptly, upon the demand of England, ordered the liberation of the prisoners (26th of December). Later friendly relations between the United States and Great Britain, where, among the upper classes, there was a strong sentiment in favour of the Confederacy, were seriously threatened by the fitting out of Confederate privateers in British ports, and the Administration owed much to the skilful diplomacy of the American minister in London, Charles Francis Adams. A still broader foreign question grew out of Mexican affairs, when events culminating in the setting up of Maximilian of Austria as emperor under protection of French troops demanded the constant watchfulness of the United States. Lincoln’s course was one of prudent moderation. France voluntarily declared that she sought in Mexico only to satisfy injuries done her and not to overthrow or establish local government or to appropriate territory. The United States Government replied that, relying on these assurances, it would maintain strict non-intervention, at the same time openly avowing the general sympathy of its people with a Mexican republic, and that “their own safety and the cheerful destiny to which they aspire are intimately dependent on the continuance of free republican institutions throughout America.” In the early part of 1863 the French Government proposed a mediation between the North and the South. This offer President Lincoln (on the 6th of February) declined to consider, Seward replying for him that it would only be entering into diplomatic discussion with the rebels whether the authority of the government should be renounced, and the country delivered over to disunion and anarchy.

The Civil War gradually grew to dimensions beyond all expectation. By January 1863 the Union armies numbered near a million men, and were kept up to this strength till the end of the struggle. The Federal war debt eventually reached the sum of $2,700,000,000. The fortunes of battle were somewhat fluctuating during the first half of 1863, but the beginning of July brought the Union forces decisive victories. The reduction of Vicksburg (4th of July) and Port Hudson (9th of July), with other operations, restored complete control of the Mississippi, severing the Southern Confederacy. In the east Lee had the second time marched his army into Pennsylvania to suffer a disastrous defeat at Gettysburg, on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of July, though he was able to withdraw his shattered forces south of the Potomac. At the dedication of this battlefield as a soldiers’ cemetery in November, President Lincoln made the following oration, which has taken permanent place as a classic in American literature:—

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